Bugs and Viruses

Having experience in the hygiene industry is a big eye opener when news breaks about new viruses and bacteria. Coronavirus is the latest thing to hit the news, a while ago it was Swine-Flu, H1N1. 

Today, it's easy to only think that computers can carry software viruses, and so we concentrate on ensuring our machines are kept clean internally, but then forget about the physical condition of the keyboard, mouse and screen as well as other add on's we might have purchased.

Research by various laboratories has shown that a computer keyboard alone can carry anything up to 7000 forms of bacteria, which is easily transferred when the user moves around the room or office touching surfaces that others have touched.

Often busy office workers eat their lunch at their desks too, while browsing the internet or continuing to work, which can transfer bacteria from the keyboard into our bodies as we eat.

A sobering thought indeed, and could be made worse with shared devices and workstations found in many warehouse areas, and hospitals.

So regular cleaning is essential, and highly recommended, but isn't normally something that your office cleaners will do as it contains a risk that is often beyond their liability insurance.

Turning the keyboard upside or blasting it with air from an air duster is a quick way to get the physical debris out, but followed up with some strong sanitising wipes similar to the type found here would also kill off the bacteria.



So remember, it's not just the viruses IN your computer you have to think about!

It's all in a Name

You know, it still surprises me how many times I see a vehicle go by with beautiful sign written information on it advertising the business.

It looks amazing, beautiful graphics, great logo, snazzy colours. And then... you see it... the email address.

fredblogsservices@gmail.com or @btinternet.net or @yahoo.com

All signs of a free website, no sign of professionalism.

For not much more than about £20 per YEAR you can purchase your own Domain Name which looks so much more professional and is not as easy to manage as you'd think.

If you've gone to the trouble and expense to get your Company Vehicle Sign-written, then why not get a domain name first and make it look so much more professional?

Wherever Next?

Working in IT has often given me reason to be amazed at the next thing that comes out.   People automatically expect me to understand everything about I.T., but in reality you end up just trying your best to stay up to speed with the latest tech that affects your own line of business.  But it never stops the fascination.

A few examples need to be made:-

1. Google's Automatic Self Driven Car (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiwVMrTLUWg)
2. Google Duplex (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5VN56jQMWM)
3. Oculus Interface (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMiAPnVvzAQ&t=101s)
4. Anki Vector (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy2Z2TWAt6A)

You might wonder why I've chosen those 4.   Have a look at the associated links for Videos that will explain them a little more.

In essence, technology has pushed forward into a new zone, that of taking on a greater part of our lives. 

It's going to start driving our cars, making decisions on the road, having conversations with people that we no longer have time for, developing virtual places to meet our friends so we don't have to leave our homes, and providing robots in the home instead of pets.

"Now hang on", I hear you say "You're an I.T. guy, surely you LOVE all this stuff?"

Yep, I do. But I'm balanced about it all too. I see the need for technology in certain areas of life, but never at the expense of taking it away from our physical abilities. 

They say it was never an exercise freak that invented the remote control.. it's true... once we allow a machine to do a job that we would normally do, then we stop training ourselves to do it.

We don't need to walk around a store to buy shopping when we can sit at home and do it online. We don't need to meet people in person if we can meet them in a virtual room. We don't need to enjoy the experience of driving, if the computer can drive for us. We don't need to make a phone call and talk to somebody if Google can do it.

I'll let you decide what you think is happening to technology. I'm not against it, but I won't let it take everything from me. 

Sneaky Assistant

We all love a new update, and I certainly love to see what Apple have included on their latest patches or operating systems.

However, sometimes the small additions can get overlooked, and today's article is to make you aware of one of them.

It's called 'Wifi Assist' and its tucked away in... No, not in your WIFI settings but in your MOBILE DATA settings. Go into Settings, Mobile data and scroll to the bottom and you'll see a little switch there.

When it is switched on, it will monitor your Wifi signal strength and when it deems that it's too weak, will divert your data through your mobile phone providers data plan.

Now that might seem to be really helpful at first... Until you realise that your Monday night Netflix Film evening in the distant corner of your house on your iPad was channels through your Data Plan.  

Spiralling Data Costs on your mobile plan? Maybe so, maybe not, but it's worth being aware of this feature and how it works.

Simply switch it off to force your mobile device to use Wifi all the time it's connected to it regardless of the signal strength.

Costly New Feature?

Came across an interesting situation today. My wife complained that her last mobile phone bill was £20 more in a month than normal.  Additional Data had been used.

After initial investigations, nothing became apparent. Until she had issues with connecting to the wifi of our home network and her iPad connected to her personal hotspot on her phone without it being switched on!

I will admit it took me by surprise, but it seems Apple introduced a new feature which automatically allows devices that share the same iCloud account information to use personal hotspots on devices, whether they are switched on or off and whether you change the passwords or not.

While there is a great debate about the security issues involved in this update (for example, when your personal hotspot is switched off, your device is still broadcasting it's SSID for all to see) the main issue for us was the unknown costs.

For while my wife was out with the children, in a location that had no wifi, the iPad found the hotspot which was switched off on the phone, activated it and used the data on the phone without her knowing it was going on.

Yes, it advertises a big blue bar across the phone when a device is connected. But if the phone is in a bag within range of the two devices, it can all happen silently and you could find yourself going over your data limit.

You can't switch it off.  If you switch off the hotspot, the other devices can switch it back on.

The way we managed to prevent it from searching and finding the iPhone, was by turning off the BLUETOOTH on the iPad which prevented the two devices from covertly talking to the outside world.

A Sort and Battery

One of the most common questions we ask regarding mobile phones is "Why doesn't my battery last very long any more?"

This is particularly the case with smart phones, and when you look at the industry at the moment, we would guess that over 95% of phones sold on the market now fit this category.

So why does the battery seem to fail so quickly? Are you finding that you're having to charge the phone every night, or even partway through the day ?

While there are items on the market to help with this issue (We have stock ourselves of emergency phone batteries that you can carry in your bag to charge your phone up while you're out and about) it doesn't answer the question "WHY?" 

One of the things to remember with smart phones is that they're no longer just a phone.  They contain GPS systems to work as SatNav, they collect emails, connect to your social networks, take pictures, videos, messaging systems, train timetables, internet viewing, music processing systems and that's just the START of some of the apps that people most commonly have on their phone.

People say that they close the apps down after use, but what is commonly forgotten is that a lot of the apps run in the background, as system services.  Some of these services include "location services" a way that the phone can tell the app exactly where it is. This might be to stamp on a photo the location where the picture was taken, or might be so that it can post your location when you update your Facebook status.

Some of these might be important, especially if it's the core reason you have the app installed - like a SatNav. But we certainly need to ask if it's vital for this service to be constantly running if we don't particularly NEED that feature on that app. Do we really need people to know exactly WHERE we were when we posted a comment? Could that be a security risk for example (i.e. comment posted when we are not at home, means our home is empty?)

By going through the settings of the phone and switching off some of these location services, this will greatly increase the life of the battery.

Other tips include switching off PUSH notifications, on emails (particularly if we prefer to check for messages, instead of the phone pinging at us every time we receive an email).

Screen brightness is another feature we can reduce. You might not notice a small drop in screen brightness for most of the time you use the phone, but this will greatly increase the battery life.

The way we charge the phone is equally important. Regular charging a battery when it's not necessary can actually reduce the life of the battery. Installing a battery charging app can be a valuable way to ensure that the battery gets the charge at the correct rate and receives a proper schedule of charging.

Why not go through the apps that you currently have in your phone and ask yourself how many times you've used that app in the past month or so.  By good housekeeping, we can all improve the service life of the device that could be a life saver - if treated with care.

Clouded

I hope I'm not the only person that was a little sceptical about "The Cloud" when it arrived.  I'll confess that the thought of all my data being out of my control, possibly open to attack, made my hair stand up on the back of my neck.

I won't say that I'm stuck in the 80's or 90's, but I guess I like to ensure that technology is going to work as it says it will before I jump in with both feet. Is that a lack of faith in the tech? Maybe it's just I'm getting tired of spending late nights trying to repair the damage caused by the early leaping.

As an example, we've been using a Dropbox account to synchronise data between two offices.  Two servers have their own accounts and share a folder so that work we create on one server is available moments later on the other. It's not instant, but it's quick enough for the purpose of the documents we're creating, and gives us the confidence we needed to rest our hopes on the backup element too.

Interestingly, we had an email from Dropbox to say that our account had been upgraded free from 50GB storage, to 1TB.  This made me sit up.  Currently, we make backups of our server onto 1TB USB drives which are on rotation. Now, with a little folder re-organisation, we can throw all the slow and static data into the Dropbox folder, which gets synchronised within moments.

Suddenly the need for the backup drives is dying.  The worry that the drives will fail, the concern that the backup software didn't do the job, the risk of a fire, the worry of the drives being stolen off site....

Is my view being clouded? Maybe. Maybe in this case, that's a good thing after all.

DNS Its All in a Name

We use them every day, and yet behind the scenes things happen pretty quick to disguise what's really going on. What is it? 

DNS - Domain Name Server.  This is a computer that sits on a network (in this instance the internet) and converts a fancy domain into a slightly harder to remember IP Address.  Confused yet?

Basically, every computer that sits on a network is assigned an IP Address. IPv6 is the newest standard, but for today's purposes we'll look at the IPv4 version, which is a set of 4 numbers separated by a dot.  Each number can go from 0 to 255 so an IP Address might take a format like this - 192.168.0.1

As you can imagine, with each set of numbers ranging from 0 - 254, you can have a lot of numbers. 4,294,967,296 in fact.  You can't have duplicates, so each computer has a unique address on that network.

Now, lets say you want to look at a web page on one of those computers.  I'd like to search for a new watering can, so I might typically go to Ebay to have a look. 

So I go into my internet browser and in the top I type http://23.67.255.200

Ah, browsing Ebay is so much fun. I must Google and find some news to read. Google is http://173.794.41.83

Oh, look out the window, there is my window cleaner. And on the side of his van he has his web site http://94.136.40.103

Wait a minute. That's a bit hard to remember, isn't it? And to make matters worse, tomorrow I might find that Googles IP address has changed as one of their servers might be down for maintenance....

Surely it's easier to remember ebay.co.uk or google.com ?   This is where a DNS Server comes in.  It's job is to keep record of domain names (i.e. google.com) and remember which IP address they point to. When you type google.com in your browser, a Domain Name Server will quickly translate that into the correct and current IP address and your browser will find the web site there.

The importance of a Domain Name Server is apparent, without them running in the background, the internet would be a totally different experience.

What A Difference A Drive Makes

One of the questions we get asked the most is "How can I make my computer run faster?" 

This is obviously a very open question as there are so many things you can do to speed up your computer.  Much of which depend on time and budget.

However, while a fast processor and ample memory is key to a speedy machine, often one of the factors that get forgotten is just how quickly that processor or memory can access your data.

Opening up a picture of Uncle Fred with his snorkel on his holiday in 1969 is hardly something we'd be concerned at when it comes to the speed of the hard drive.  However, when you drum your fingers on the desk after pressing the "ON" button, waiting for the operating system to fire up, or while you wait for your office suite to start, or your graphics software, it starts becoming a necessity.

In a recent machine upgrade at work, I was pleasantly surprised at the difference in speed in which my new PC got to the log in screen.  In the past, I would switch the computer on, go make a cup of coffee and return to it waiting for my password.  However, on the new machine, I am prompted for my password in a little over 30 seconds. Why?

Instead of the typical Hard Drive installed as drive "C", it has a SSD (Solid State Drive) installed.  This is a drive that takes similar technology from the USB stick, memory banks that can remember the information even without power.  The advantages are that the data can be retrieved in a flash, without waiting for the hard drive platter to start spinning, or the arm to whizz to the location where the first sector of data is stored.

While it can be argued that a standard hard drive is faster when it delivers a large chunk of data, strung together on the drive, fragmentation of the drive often means that this data is scattered around the drive thus slowing it down.

Fragmentation does not affect SSD, as the technology requires no moving parts at all, the access is almost instant.  This means that booting up windows, firing up office, and general opening of applications and writing away of data is lightning fast by comparison.

Downsides? Well, typically cost is the main set back. For £49.99 you can either get a 128gb SSD or a 1024gb (1TB) Hard Drive.

My answer was to keep a regular hard drive in my computer with my unique data on it. The O/s and all associated programs are on the SSD.  On my home computer, a slower machine than my work, I can still get booted up in under1 minute. I'm pretty impressed with that. 

So, how do you make your computer run faster? Get SSD when you can next afford it, and you'll see a speed difference almost instantaneously. 

What A Scam

Share This! Pass This On! It's Not Going To Be Free!!

It surprises me just how many of these kinds of messages I see posted on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsap etc.  Messages that really do amount to simple and basic scams.

How often have you seen a message that requires that you share the post, or like to post or forward the post so that something truly amazing will happen? 

Lets analyse some of them..

"We will send out a free pair of 'x' brand trainers to everybody that clicks 'like' if we reach over 150,000 likes"

Really? You only have to click "Like" ? You don't have to provide your full name and address, or your shoe size? These trainers retail for over £50 + p&p per pair and they're willing to send out 150,000+ pairs? At a cost of over £7.5 Million ?  If you really believe that - then you best click 'like' straight away!

"<Insert Random Picture of Some Poor Child in Hospital> Share this and the more people that share this, then top businesses will donate large sums of money to cure <insert awful illness name here>"

Sigh - This is sad because people tug on our heartstrings and we just feel we want to share or click like. But which businesses have been named as offering money? No names? Oh, so are they aware of this? How are they going to keep track?

"PANIC VIRUS - PANIC DON'T DIAL THIS NUMBER - PANIC DON'T BUY THIS <Insert Famous Brand of Food/Drink> - SHARE THIS WITH EVERYBODY!"

Now these are interesting because they often come with headed pictures of what looks like a letter, or an email or some authority confirming that it's true... what to do? what to do?


Well, what really IS the purpose of all these "scams" ?  Mainly to get YOUR details. WHAT ? Did you just say... yep. To get YOUR information. It's a marketing scam really. Because if they can get you to click "like" or "share" or even worse, get you to TAG your friends in the posts, they get the opportunity to bypass your privacy settings and get a scam message through to your friends, and target them with additional information or scams.

So before simply clicking "like" or "share" or spreading the word and continuing the chain letter on, why not look up the information on a web site, see if it's really true or if it's just a scam, and make an informed decision before posting it on your timeline.

Let's Talk

There was a time when your communication options amounted to telephone, fax or letter. (In fairness, there was a time when your options were papyrus and horse but moving on). We now have any number of options including mobile, text, messaging apps and social networks. Many bemoan the lack of personal communication, feeling that 'nothing beats a phone call'.

The telephone is an incredibly rude device. It's the equivalent of walking into a room and saying "talk to me now, talk to me now, talk to me now." Understandable in an emergency but fairly inexcusable otherwise. The other modern means of communication have the advantage of saying "I would like to tell you something, when you're ready."

The perception may be that a phone call will get a quicker answer and there is some truth in that, although not always. It is possible to phrase a greeting, question and sign off in three or four sentences in an email, circumventing a phone call involving a greeting, generic enquiry about life, prelude to the question, question, asking the question a different way, discovering the answer to that question is not possible straight away, an arrangement on how to find the answer, a wishing of well and saying goodbye three times. Even worse when the phonee has just come back from holiday and wants to describe it to you in detail. I'm looking at you Brian.

That is a two-way street. Personally, if I get asked a question out of the blue on the telephone, I can hear myself explaining it extremely poorly without the possibility of editing it. I can hone an email down to a work of art. It's almost Shakespearian. No really.

Of course, we are not anti-phone. This is largely about using the right tool for the right job. Still, discounting email or other electronic means of communication in the 21st century is short-sighted at best. Disagree? Let's talk about it. Text me.

"I am invincible!"

We often hear an all too common expression "I have an apple.. ergo, I am immune to viruses"

It often makes me want to grab their face and slap them a few times in the hope of waking them up a little.

I am sorry to burst your bubble, but an apple is just another computer. It runs the same way as a PC. It has a processor, memory, hard drives, graphics chips.. it's the same.   It has an operating system which is one huge program that allows other programs to run on it.

And there, my friends, is the whole issue that tends to be ignored.

Anything can be hacked today. Anything.  We've heard of big companies being attacked by hackers and they've been running their own bespoke operating systems.  Corporations are starting to get more concerned because of cyber terrorists that could essentially hack into pretty much anything that affects our day to day living.

So why don't Apples get viruses?  *slap* They do. The fact is that they are equally as vulnerable as a Windows or Linux machine in getting a virus. The reason they don't get as many is because, like it or not, Microsoft still have about a 90% hold on the market. And thus because of this, hackers who want to have the biggest impact will have a go at the biggest market share.

Sadly, because Apples are becoming more and more popular, hackers are turning their attention toward these devices and writing some nasty code. Soon, there will be more viruses spreading around.

However, now is the time to wake up and realise that your system is not impervious to being hacked. All the time you have your head buried in the sand, your system could be getting data taken off it, or information ruined.

Get yourself protected. Do it now. Have a firewall set up on your router and have a highly rated anti virus running.

How To Not Get Cut By The Cutting Edge

By virtue of the industry we work in, we're quite keen to keep ourselves up-to-date. That obviously means ensuring our operating systems, anti-virus and other software are the latest versions. Updating will often add new features and fix problems, whether obvious or behind the scenes. Generally, it's a good idea, although not without exception.

Most modern phones also run operating systems, likely iOS or Android. One of our programmers recently updated his phone to the latest Android version, only to find it slow to a crawl and become dangerously close to unusable. A little research established he was not alone and it took about a month for a fix to be issued. The problem traced back to the phone manufacturer rather than Google but it was a frustrating few weeks.

So regular updating is valuable, but it's often worth not being in the very first wave of up-takers. Waiting for any early reports of problems may save you a lot of difficulties in the long run.

Time To Move On

Search the Internet for "spare parts for a model T ford" and you won't find Ford Motor Company at the top of any listings. 

Search again for parts for a Ford Capri and you're likely to have the same problem. Why? Because times move on and companies have to devote their time and attention to new opportunities and stop spending time and resources on old products.

The same process applies in the computer industry.  Back in 2001 Microsoft launched Windows XP and it bought a fresh change to how things were looking back then. A couple of years later, Microsoft launched Office 2003 and now both XP and Office 2003 are going to be shelved when it comes to "updates".

Support for older programs requires a team of developers to upgrade the software, ensuring that it contains the latest bug fixes and security patches.  However, when you consider that this software is over 10 years old, you can understand why Microsoft and other software developers want to turn their attention and teams to keeping the up to date software protected and supported.

What does this mean for you? If you have XP or Office 2003 you need to be aware that your software will no longer receive updates around April 2014. You can still use the software, but as new security breaches are discovered, you won't get new protection from Microsoft.

"Why Move on ? I like XP!"
Good for you. If you're happy to take the time protecting your system and it runs well for you, great. We're not demanding that you change, but certainly would recommend that you consider upgrading as you'll have all the benefits of the new software along with the countless security and bug fixes over the years.

As anybody that owns a classic car will tell you, there's a certain pride and joy in running an older vehicle, but you have to be prepared to put the time and effort into keeping it running.

And as anybody that buys a brand new car will tell you, there's a certain amount of excitement discovering what all the buttons do.

The Advantages Of Disloyalty

For any of you with an iDevice (and we're guessing that's a lot) you will probably be familiar with iMessage, the built in messaging app that comes with nearly all Apple products. Fairly solid service. However, somewhat like a spoilt child (or a multi-national, billion dollar enterprise) iMessage will not play nicely with any other messaging service or operating system. So if you have a friend who dares not to possess a Cupertino necessity, you may have to text them (remember texts) or, deep breath, talk to them.

There are, of course, perfectly viable alternatives. WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, Kik, MessageMe, Line, Voxer, BBM - take your pick, all of which have the major advantage of being cross-platform. Android, iOS, Windows, Blackberry, even Nokia (I never thought I'd say 'even Nokia'), you can communicate regardless of the device. Let's do that exercise again. Take a photograph on your iPhone, share it via Photo Stream and your iPad will be delighted. If your Windows Phone owning friend wants a copy though, they are out of luck. Be disloyal and auto-upload to Dropbox however and go share-crazy.

Another approach is one that many of us here at Estuary favour. One of us has an iPad as their tablet of choice and an Android device as their phone. On the odd occasion when a must-have app is only released on one platform, we're covered. We have recently written some apps and are ready to test them on both major platforms. The same principle applies to desktop computers. Microsoft Windows will run on an Apple Mac much easier than OSX, Apple's operating system, will run on a PC. So owning a Mac, although an expensive proposition, allows you to get the best (relatively speaking) of both worlds.

There are no perfect answers when it comes to owning tech and the product simply does not exist that will single-handedly do everything you want it to all the time. Still, some judicious purchasing will cover a lot of eventualities.

Done. (How bracket-tastic was that post?!)

I'm Over Here (Which Means I'm Not Over There)

Today, more than ever, people interact with social networking by means of their mobile devices, bringing images and unique interactive data to the masses.

We've often seen images of our friends on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram etc, with a location tag linked to the image.  Gradually our photo's on our devices get organised to location, so we can quickly find images we took when were were on our holiday in some sunny or fun location.

However, with this exciting and interesting addition, comes a word of caution - particularly if our privacy settings are not closed down enough.

With today's technology and search engine power, it is not too difficult for a criminal to build up a picture of your movements if your location services are switched on to public access.  They'll be able to see and work out where you are by following your twitter account, your Facebook account or your Instagram account and know when you are at various locations.  And of course, while you are in a new location... you are NOT at home.

It might be easy to conclude that nobody knows where you live, but with a few deductions, a few checks on the names of the friends you have, or the school you attended or place you work, your address details could easily be discovered.  We'll let your over imaginative thoughts conclude what could happen if a criminal knew where you lived and when you were not at home.

So what can we do about it?  

Let's not be party poopers and suggest that we don't take photo's of our holidays (although the thought of going through hundreds of "and this is another picture of that sandwich we ate in France" photo's does make us consider this). No realistically it would be a far better idea to ensure that our location services are restricted to friends and family and make sure that those we have listed amongst friends and family are just that. Friends and family.

Technology will always have it's place in society, it's made enough of an impact to never go out of fashion in today's life, but its also open to abuse. And abused it is. It's used to advance everything, including crime.  So by doing our part, we can reduce the risk of it happening to us.

What is the world coming to? (About 400mb)

I was rebuilding a work machine today and had to re-install all the drivers and software necessary for the user.

It was while downloading the mouse driver and the printer driver that I suddenly noticed that both of these seemed to take a long time in installing.

The mouse driver took longer to install than the anti virus program (We install a business/networked version of Kaspersky) and the printer driver was over 400mb, which was also bigger than the install size of the anti virus!

I couldn't believe it!

Is this a crazy pattern that developed from a sloppy practise of programming? Or is it simply the amount of code necessary to drive the hardware nowadays? 

Have computers gotten so complicated, that the devices that connect to them are requiring large chunks of programs to keep control and make them accessible? 

Talking of which, I need to switch my twitter enabled coffee machine on. 

The Benefits of a Social Network

I was quite surprised today to hear somebody say that they deleted an invite to "LinkedIn" because it was of no benefit or use to them as a salesperson.

While its true that Social Networking has a history of being a bit of a 'gamers and gossipers way of keeping in the know', it also holds some value for businesses.

How often have you met a friend of a friend (Fig.1) and found that you have a lot in common? Or needed some work done at home, and were able to get in touch with a friend who knows somebody that can do the job reliably for you?  As a human race, we prefer dealing with people that we know, than pass the work on to an unknown untrusted person that we found in the local business directory.

Social Networking can be a powerful tool in enabling you to get to know the people that your friends know, and getting your business credentials across to a customer of a customer.

Its quite normal to join a social networking site and start finding people that have similar needs to your existing customers, or who you are not normally able to approach because they don't know you.

However, now that you have a common interest, a common friend, the door has opened for you to have the opportunity in extending your network in that direction.
(Fig 2)

So don't be afraid of the technology. It's a tool that will save you a lot of leg work and will open doors of opportunity.

A properly worked Social Network has the ability to work more effectively than cold calling on the telephone. So join, fill out your profile in the best way you can, and start meeting the people that might make a difference to your working life.

Old Tin Can

An article in The Telegraph today, reported that Britons are losing around 5½ days because their computers are slow. This got us thinking... and calculating.

Lets say the basic wage for an office worker is around £16,000.  That's around £307 per week, or £61 per day. So 5½ days at that rate is around £338.

Most IT departments would purchase a basic office machine for around £300. They'd get a reasonable machine for that price and everybody would be happy. But add another £338 to that budget and suddenly it's a different story..

The difference between the two is striking. You go from a 2 core processor to an 8. You increase your ram from 4gb to 16gb. The graphics processor leaps from a built in motherboard display to a 2gb graphics card and the storage also increases from 500gb to a 2TB drive and 128gb Solid State Drive.

Certainly the performance between the two machines would make a huge difference in the lives of the workers, increasing efficiency and reducing stress.

It doesn't surprise us to read these stats. This is something we've been a great believer in, giving the worker a full orchestra to do the job instead of expecting them to write a concerto with a tin can and a cocktail stick. 

We've seen workers struggle with slow machines and seen support staff spend countless hours trying their best to find ways to tweak a little more speed out of the workstation. In the end you spend more money in time and resources than you would have spent investing in the right equipment at the beginning.

Don't be afraid of the tech and invest wisely.

In Defence Of The Tech [I]

The first in what I fear will be a regular series...

We've read a recent spate of news articles that turn up at least once a year. In their simplest form, they go like this,

'I went on holiday, came home and got a mobile phone bill for £27 million.'

There is a recurring theme in almost all of these stories. And it goes something like,

'I didn't know I was going to be charged £120 per MB while abroad.'

And therein lies the problem. Not that the bill was a mistake. Not that the phone was racking up a phone bill with an evil smile on its face. The issue was that the human in this equation didn't know all the facts.

That's not to say the mobile service providers are completely blameless. Historically, roaming charges were notoriously hard to find. It really wasn't even made clear enough that charges were significantly increased while abroad. There again, how could it not be. Being able to phone or text the same number and have that person or message reach you wherever you are in the world is a phenomenal technological achievement.

So this seems to be down to getting all the facts, then using your phone within your means. Data use is what will rack up the largest portion of your mobile bill while abroad. Some apps will use data to check for updates and that data can mount up quickly. Most phones have the facility to switch off roaming data and if you don't need constant internet access and can live off of WiFi only, switch it off. If you do need mobile data overseas, it's worth asking your provider what offers they can give you or buying a SIM card specifically for the country you're travelling to.

Estuary IT - Defenders of Tech since 2013!